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"STEM Majors are on the Increase at UTK"
Chancellor Jimmy Cheek took an opportunity to highlight the increase in students interested in majoring in STEM disciplines —science, technology, engineering and math— at UTK in one of his recent bimonthly newsletters. One of our BCMB undergradate major, Madelyn Crawford, was quoted as an expamle of a growing number of UT Knoxville students who are preparing for careers in the STEM fields:
"Crawford, a sophomore in honors biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology, says she can never remember a time when she didn’t imagine herself working in the sciences. Her goal is to earn a doctorate and then become a faculty member at a university where she can teach and conduct research."
Chancellor Jimmy Cheek said, STEM majors are growing more common:
- In the past five years, UT has seen a 28 percent increase in the number of students enrolled in the STEM fields.
- Undergraduate enrollment in these fields is up nearly 41 percent and doctoral enrollment is up 33 percent, with that number expected to grow even more as the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education (CIRE) gets up and running.
- Likewise, the number of women enrolled in the STEM fields at UT has grown each of the past five years, and in 2010, it was 26 percent higher than it was in 2005.